


I'm Not Dying But I Bleed

by Cinnamongirl



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Introspective Elf Mages, Light Bondage, Merrill Is a Good Bro, Multiple Orgasms, Oral Sex, Poker (Wicked Grace) as a Metaphor, Sensory Deprivation, Sex Magic, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 11:02:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5537492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinnamongirl/pseuds/Cinnamongirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three drabbles as a DA Secret Santa gift for Eletania, who asked for something with her Inquisitor Ma'lin Lavellan.</p><p>Part 1: Solas/Lavellan Wicked Grace angst-y fluff.<br/>Part 2: Bondage and oral sex!<br/>Part 3: Post-Trespasser, Lavellan is living with Merrill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eletania](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eletania/gifts).



> Title is from My Blood by Ellie Goulding, because that's (one of) the translation(s) of "ma lin" in Elven.

Solas could tell that she was exhausted, but not ready to fall asleep. She was relaxing on her bedroll and staring at the ceiling of the tent.

“I don't feel like sleeping yet,” said Ma'lin.

Solas smiled.

“I would suggest fucking, but it's so quiet. Everyone would hear us.” She had a point. They were camped on high ground in the Forbidden Oasis. Her scouts had a clear view for miles in all directions, but the barren desert environment was also almost completely silent at night. 

“I assume you're feeling better, then?” Solas asked. 

Ma'lin rolled her eyes and then stretched experimentally, as if to prove a point. She'd been injured in a fight with a varghest earlier but she still insisted that it looked a lot worse than it actually was. It was curious that the quiet, cautious, intellectual Inquisitor had decided to pursue training in the one style of magic which put her at the front of every battle. Solas admired her boldness, as much as he also worried about her.

They lay there in comfortable silence for another minute or so before she said “Wicked Grace?”

“Of course,” he replied. 

He dealt the cards in the space between them while they both sat upright, knees almost touching in the small tent. Solas examined his hand. Even the cards with their virtues and vices illustrated the strange human compulsion to divide the world into discrete categories of good and evil, despite all evidence that reality was hardly so simple.

Wicked Grace was not really about getting the best cards (which was a matter of chance) nor was the object to, as Dorian insisted, cheat more shamelessly than one's opponents while managing to get away with it. It really came down to observation, probability management, and psychological manipulation. Ma'lin wasn't a master of any of these things but her skill was respectable and she held her own against most opponents.

Several hands in, they were tied. “Next one determines the winner?” she asked.

Solas nodded.

It was her turn to deal. She shuffled and dealt the cards, and started singing softly under her breath as she looked at her hand. The singing wasn't a tell; Ma'lin had a tendency to hum or sing all the time and she usually wasn't even doing it consciously. However, Solas could see the the micro-expressions in her face in the dim light, like the way her eyes widened when she looked at her cards. He heard her heart rate and breathing increase in the silence of the desert. They took turns drawing and discarding.

Several turns later, Solas drew the Angel of Death. Soon after that, Ma'lin started looking carefully bored and maybe a little bit frustrated. Her body told him that she was excited about her hand, but her behavior suggested that she didn't have anything. She'd figured out that he had the card that would end the game and was trying to bluff him into playing it. 

He laid down the Angel of Death and they both displayed their hands. His was mediocre but she had one of the better hands possible in the game. Evidently, he'd fallen for her bluff.

“Well done,” he said.

The corners of her mouth had started to turn up but then she abruptly frowned. “No, wait, you let me win.”

Solas said nothing and held his breath.

“You had a winning hand. I finally get a good hand and you somehow had an even better one. The card you discarded four turns ago, and the one three turns before that. If you'd held on to those you would have won but you discarded them and picked up other cards so that I would win.”

He briefly considered lying, but couldn't bring himself to disrespect her more than he already had. “Would you believe me if I said I was distracted by you?” he asked with an expression that he hoped was somewhere between embarrassed and leering.

Ma'lin laughed incredulously and rolled her eyes at him again, and Solas allowed himself to exhale. 

“Ir abelas,” he said quietly, not sure if he was apologizing for noticing more than she realized, for letting her win, or for being so obvious about it.

“No harm done. We should probably get some sleep.” She set the cards aside and gestured for him to lie down beside her. 

They fell asleep with him on his back and her curled up next him, and an unspoken promise that he would find her in the Fade.


	2. Chapter 2

He knelt down behind her and kissed each of her wrists before binding them together. It was a simple braided rope and he didn't bother with fancy knotwork; it would be pointless, for this. 

“How is that?” he asked.

Ma'lin tested the bonds. It was secure, but not uncomfortable. “It's all right.” She had once told him the story of what happened when she was young, when a human tried to force himself on her. She still remembered the fear and helplessness she'd felt before she managed to break free and attack him with magic. She'd gone on to explain that this, what she liked to do with Solas, was different. It felt different. It made her feel powerful to give up control when she when she was the one choosing to do so. He did not tell her that he felt unworthy of it.

“Excellent," he said. "Sit down at the edge of the bed.” 

He rose as she sat down and perched stiffly with her arms behind her. She was already undressed while he was still fully clothed. Solas looked her in the eye and she watched him eagerly. She had talked about being blindfolded when they discussed this, but then Solas had had a more interesting idea that she'd readily agreed to.

He leaned down so that his face was inches from hers and grinned hungrily, as if he was about to eat her. It was the last thing she saw before he used magic to extinguish all of the lights, plunging her bedroom into total darkness. 

They both had better night vision than humans did but it didn't do them any good when there was no light whatsoever. Solas took a few seconds to listen to her breathing and then reached out a hand to caress her face. She leaned into the touch. He felt oddly more anonymous in the dark but also more vulnerable.

He found her mouth with his and ran his hands over her body as he kissed her, relishing the ability to touch her while she was forced to hold back. He moved from her mouth to her neck and trailed kisses down her body, stopping to nuzzle her breasts before finally reaching her groin. Solas crouched on the floor and pulled her forward a bit until she was balancing precariously and her legs were spread open for him. She gasped when he licked at her.

It wasn't difficult to get her moaning. He flattened his tongue and tasted her and pointed it so that he could trace glyphs over her folds before finally settling on her clit. He went at his own pace, ignoring her unsubtle attempts to adjust her hips and move him exactly where she wanted him. Solas could hear and feel her struggling with her bound wrists and trying to support herself so that she didn't topple over. 

She was getting louder, almost but not quite screaming. _It's really not difficult to make you sing_ , he thought with a laugh. It was fortunate that the Inquisitor's quarters were farther away from most of the rest of the fortress. He pushed his fingers inside her and she came quickly afterward, her hips shuddering against his face.

“You don't seem to be done yet,” he said. He was pleased to see that he'd gotten her worked up enough that she wouldn't be easily satisfied.

“FUCK no, I need more!”

“Very well.” He leaned back so that he wasn't touching her anymore and started touching her with magic instead, tendrils of cold at her lips and along her thighs and against her nipples until they were stiff, and little sparks of electricity to tease and tickle her skin until it culminated in a buzzing sensation against her groin that was so intense she fell backward.

Solas felt her thighs with his hands and moved upward to touch her stomach, confirming what he'd heard in the darkness. He could only imagine how she looked right now, precariously spread out on the bed for him. 

Ma'lin whined at the loss of sensation. He held her hips in place and brought his mouth to her again, along with more of the magic. He worked slowly, letting the sensation build up. “Yes, _please_ , just a little more!”

He kept her there at the edge until her back was arching awkwardly and he could swear he could hear her sobbing, and then sped up his movements just enough to push her over. She cursed him and thanked him and started to come.

Her thighs tensed, her hips jerked forward, her back arched even more, and she yelled her way through an impressively long orgasm. Finally, the last of it subsided and the tension left her body but she didn't relax.

Solas got up from the floor and helped her roll over to her stomach so that her arms wouldn't go numb. He heard her turn her face so that her cheek was resting against the bed. He rubbed a hand over her back.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“I'm quite well but I need you to fuck me!” she said with an edge of desperation. “ _Please_ , Solas!” Her lower body squirmed, trying to touch him as much as possible. 

“You _do_ ask so nicely...”

Solas tried to remember where Ma'lin's books were on the floor as he removed his clothes. He suspected that his leggings ended up on top of a stack of them, but he wasn't worried as long as he didn't damage anything or trip in the dark. He wiped his face with his shirt and carefully deposited it on an empty space on the floor next to him. He was fairly hard—of _course_ he was, the way she tasted was always impossibly arousing—and she was still mumbling requests for him to PLEASE fuck her already and her ridiculous human bed was high enough that he only barely had to bend his knees in order to line himself up, so he felt with his hand until he found her entrance and then guided himself into her.

Sex in the physical world was always weird. To be fair, everything on this side felt too solid and too slow and there was the ever-present disconcerting feeling of being _separate_ but Solas had mostly gotten used to it before meeting Ma'lin. When they started sleeping together, it had been a very long time for him and he was unprepared for how different it would feel. At least he could mostly ignore it as long as he was just stimulating her; it was a guilty indulgence anyway, allowing himself to marvel at and delight in her and the ways in which she was endlessly surprising. The act of intercourse itself was different. It was superficially familiar- he'd done the same thing countless times before over his life and it was still enjoyable enough, but he couldn't quite get over the feeling that this was fundamentally _not_ how sex was supposed be (nothing in this world was as it should be).

He fucked her slowly, and then faster. He held onto her hips and allowed himself to feel the tightness gripping him as he listened to her start moaning again. This, at least, had become familiar. There was the odd, heavy feeling and a tension inside him and then he sort of seized up and spilled inside her. Orgasms weren't as enjoyable here but they were still pleasant, at least.

Ma'lin noticed that he had stopped. “But I was so _close_!” she protested. 

“You can wait your turn,” he said calmly. She didn't see him smirk a little bit when she whined in protest.

Solas pulled himself out of her and lifted her hips slightly. It only took a brief touch of his hand and a pulse of magic before she was coming _again_ , not as intense or as long as the last time but she cried out gratefully and then relaxed, finally satisfied.

She helped him re-light her room until they could see again. He untied the rope from her wrists and kissed the indentations he had left.


	3. Chapter 3

Ma'lin was still sitting at the table in the kitchen when Merrill woke up, which meant that she'd been there all night. The book they received yesterday from Ma'lin's friend Dorian Pavus was on the opposite side of the table and several pages of notes were strewn everywhere. At least one of them had a wet spot- _Had she fallen asleep writing and then drooled on it?_ Ma'lin was just sitting there, staring at a crack in the table. She'd been doing this for at least the past hour.

If Merrill knew her (which she did, thank you, Merrill wasn't very good at remembering the layout of cities but she could remember people) she hadn't eaten anything since yesterday afternoon when Merrill talked her into some dried meat. 

There wasn't really any way to translate the Dalish concept into Trade—Anders said that humans called it “blood-sugar” but Merrill was pretty sure that he was trying to trick her—but it happened when people hadn't eaten recently and it made them weak and irritable and they felt sick.

Merrill went to the larder to try to figure out what she could entice her friend to eat. Ma'lin was fond of pastries with apples and berries and honey, but Merrill wasn't sure they had enough flour. Ma'lin might be interested in just eating the raw fruit- it wouldn't be very filling but it would help. She could usually be convinced to eat potatoes when they were cooked in fat and lots of salt, but it would just make her feel worse if she was actually ill. If that was the case, she should probably have something bland and easy to digest like porridge, if she could even be talked into it.

“Stop trying to find things to feed me,” said Ma'lin's voice from the table.

“You DO need to eat, lethallan.”

A quiet groan. “Maybe later.” Merrill counted that as a victory.

It was awkward, sometimes, with two almost-Keepers living under the same roof. There was no clear leader. Ma'lin was the legendary Inquisitor who had seduced the Dread Wolf and walked physically in the Fade and between the Eluvians and had healed the breach in the sky, all while convincing the humans that she was actually sent by _their_ god, and Merrill was the one who reminded her to eat.

Merrill eyed her friend. Ma'lin's hair looked oily- _When was the last time she washed it?_ At least her clothes were clean. She was wearing either a very long shirt or a very short dress (was it called a tunic?) that barely covered the top part of her thighs. Ma'lin had sexy legs- not that the rest of her body wasn't sexy or anything, of course. Merrill didn't want Ma'lin in _that_ way—she knew Ma'lin was still in love with Fen'Harel and the two women were just friends—but Isabela said that it is important to appreciate it when one's friends are attractive. Merrill continued to look at Ma'lin and thought that if she were Fen'Harel, it would have been very difficult to leave her behind.

She wandered toward the back of the house, trying to decide what she should do. She and Ma'lin were both quiet people who understood the need to be alone and it was part of why they worked well together, but this seemed like the kind of unhappy quietness that was improved by spending time with friends. It wasn't fair to expect Ma'lin to be happy right now but she would probably feel better if she did something to keep her mind busy (or ate something, but Merrill was trying to be realistic). It didn't help that Ma'lin was technically in hiding and couldn't leave the house much. Varric called them Sparrow and Daisy, even he had realized that neither of them truly belonged indoors.

She found a pack of cards and brought it back out to Ma'lin. “Did Varric ever teach you Diamondback? I would be surprised if he didn't, he says it's an important part cultural education but I'm not entirely sure what that means-”

“Yes, Merrill. Are you asking me to play with you?”

“Please?”

“All right. Allow me a minute to put my arm on.” Ma'lin normally only wore her prosthesis when she was fighting because she was otherwise more coordinated without it, but it was useful for activities that were difficult to do one-handed.

She came back as Merrill was shuffling the deck. 

They used small stones to keep score, because Varric said that it was important to always bet with _something_. The first few minutes of the game were spent in comfortable silence. 

“I didn't find anything,” Ma'lin said abruptly. 

“Sorry?”

“Absolute shite. I was so hopeful about that book and I stayed up all night and there was not one fucking thing that we did not already know.”

“Oh, I hate it when that happens.” Merrill and Ma'lin spent a lot of their time reading books that Ma'lin's friends had sent them and looking through reports from her supporters who managed to infiltrate Fen'Harel's network. Fen'Harel was trying to restore the Empire and Ma'lin and Merrill were determined to assist him at any cost. The book from yesterday was a very old one about the Veil- Lord Pavus had apparently gone to great lengths to track it down and Ma'lin had been optimistic.

“And then I fell asleep and Solas was there again. Does that mean he knows I didn't find anything? Or does it mean that I DID find something and didn't realize it?” Ma'lin said that Fen'Harel sometimes visited her dreams, but he wouldn't interact with her. She was always upset the next day after this happened.

“Does he know how much it hurts you when he does that?”

“I don't think so, and I'm not going to tell him because it would hurt a lot more if he stopped. Anyway, it's your turn.”

As they continued to play, Merrill wondered if it would be worth it to offer to go over the book again with Ma'lin. Perhaps there was something she had missed? The implication might make her feel worse, though. Merrill briefly wondered how it was that she was the pariah and Ma'lin was the powerful leader of armies, but then she remembered that she'd once tried to kill Hawke because of the influence of a demon while Ma'lin had not only convinced a demon to help her fight Corypheus but had physically entered the Fade to save everyone from an army of demons. It was no wonder that Fen'Harel had chosen her. (At least, Merrill reminded herself, she'd been the one to perform the ritual that released Mythal from the amulet. She could take pride in that.)

“I keep wondering what would happen if I saw him again? Actually saw him in the waking world. Would he finally let me join him? Would he kill me? Would he want to be- _together_ again? And what would I even do in response?”

“What do you want to happen?”

“Honestly, I do not know." She frowned. "I might have to fight him, or maybe he would just ignore me, show up only to leave AGAIN. That would be the worst, I think.” Merrill nodded. She knew what it was like to kill someone she loved. She hoped that Ma'lin would never have to know.

They played in silence for a few more minutes. Merrill idly thought about Fen'Harel showing up one day to take Ma'lin with him because he couldn't bear the thought of destroying the world without her by his side. She remembered Isabela's allegedly-foolproof instructions about how to convince a couple to let her join them for a three-way and wondered if the technique would work on a god.

Merrill suddenly looked at her cards again. “Oh, I won!”

“Did you?”

“Yes, see?” She excitedly showed off her cards.

Ma'lin smiled a bit, but it didn't reach her eyes. “You didn't want to let me win?”

“No. Should I have?” It suddenly occurred to Merrill that she should have made a wager where Ma'lin would have to eat something if Merrill won. She probably could have gotten her to agree to that.

“I was just surprised. I feel like shite and you're trying to cheer me up but you did not let me win.”

“Would you have felt better if I did?”

“Nope!” Ma'lin smiled, and it looked close to real for the first time in weeks. “Absolutely not at all.” She got up from the table and stretched the stiffness out of her limbs. “Merrill, do you know if we have any potatoes left?”

Merrill didn't try to hide that she was pleased. “Yes! Would you like me to cook some for us?”

“Ma serannas, I would.”


End file.
